About This Class

Write: Basic Creative Writing Skills for Beginners 4: Writing

In this lecture you'll learn where to begin your story. Surprisingly, the ideal starting point is often closer to the middle or end then the beginning of your story. Start with a bang! Then we'll learn ways to overcome writer's block before a final admonition to write!

Born in Los Angeles in the middle of the last century, I have always wanted to be a writer. After twenty-five some odd years spent working in the computer industry in the heart of the Silicon Valley, first for Lockheed as a Systems Programmer and later for Cisco Systems as a test tool developer, I managed to retire early and begin my next career as a self-published author.

Along with writing and publishing my own novels I also publish the works of my wife, Melanie Jackson. During the past four years I’ve published well over 100 books in paperback and eBook formats. Oddly enough this includes eBooks on how to self-publish books and how to create professional looking book covers using the GIMP. I’ve also recorded and distributed a pair of audiobooks available for purchase on Amazon and Audible. Finally, I spend a portion of my time maintaining both my website and my wife’s website, which was developed using WordPress.

My last endeavor, begun in July of 2014, was to record training courses for distribution via Udemy. My goal was to provide low cost high quality screen cast based educational material focusing on my area of expertise; namely, self-publishing and book cover design using the GIMP. I then expanded my catalog to cover Web page development and Udemy course preparation.

My new goal is to begin recording custom material for distribution on SkillShare!!!

I currently live in the beautiful California wine country with my wife, published author Melanie Jackson, and Butterscotch the cat.